Aristotle's Categories. Annotated bibliography of the studies in English: Gar - Kun

Garver, Newton. 1974. "Notes for a Linguistic Reading of the Categories." In Ancient Logic and its Modern Interpretations, edited by Corcoran, John, 27-32. Dordrecht: Reidel.

"1. If AristotIe's Categories provide a classification of things and not of sayings, as is traditionally insisted, the things classified are at any rate 'things that can be said'. It is interesting, therefore, to inquire whether the Categories may be regarded as containing, in rudimentary form, results that might be more appropriately and more completely presented in terms of current methods of linguistic analysis, applied to a level of language or discourse that linguists usually ignore.

2. Both the name 'categories', which signifies predications or sayings, and the position of the work at the beginning of the Organon, which deals with matters of logic and language, reinforce the temptation to interpret the Categories linguistically. Although neither the title nor the position of the work in the corpus is directly due to Aristotle, they do show that the inclination to treat the Categories as at least partially linguistic goes back to the very earliest tradition of Aristotelian scholarship.

3. The determination that the categories can be given a linguistic interpretation - even the conclusion that they are linguistic, AckriIl (1) and Benveniste (2) notwithstanding - would not suffice to show that they are not also (in some sense) metaphysical, nor that they are not universal.

4. The most useful linguistic method to employ in this inquiry is distinctive feature analysis, (3) which has been used in several kinds of linguistic analysis. Passages in the Categories can be interpreted as employing a related method, if not an early version of the method itself." (p. 27)

(1) J. L. Ackrill, Aristotle' s 'Categories' and 'De Interpretatione', Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1963, p. 71. I have used Ackrill's translation. His notes, to which I refer here, are both helpful and stimulating.

(2) E. Benveniste, Problems in General Linguistics, Univ. of Miami Press, Coral Gabies; 1971, Chapter 6.

(3) This method of analysis is due to Roman Jakobson more than to anyone else. See R. Jakobson, C. G. M. Fant, and M. HalIe, Preliminaries to Speech Analysis, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1952; N. Chomsky and M. HalIe, Sound Pattern of English, Harper and Row, New York, 1968; and Fred W. Householder, Linguistic Speculations Cambridge Univ. Press, London, 1971. Most recent linguistic textbooks have a discussion of features.

Georgiadis, Costantine. 1973. "Two Conceptions of Substance in Aristotle." The New scholasticism no. 47:157-167.

"In Aristotle we find the view that an individual thing is a substance but we also find the view that form is substance. Is the meaning of substance ( οὐσία) the same in the two cases? As the title of my paper suggests, I hold that it is not. I shall argue that there are two distinct, though related, conceptions of substance in Aristotle. These are what I call, on the one hand, the reistic conception of substance, according to which substance is an individual thing (res) (2) and, on the other hand, the archological (3) conception of substance, according to which substance is a principle (ἀρχή) of the individual thing." (p. 157)

(2) The use of the term 'reistic' here does not imply the narrowing of reality to individual objects alone as in T. Kotarbinski's philosophy of reism but only underlines the central position of the individual within reality.

(3) Giovanni Reale, in his book Il Concetto di Filosofia Prima e l'unità della Metafisica di Aristotele, wrongly uses the term archeologia in the sense of aitiologia. He should have used the term archologia.

Ghimpu, Anca gabriel. 2011. "The lack of a deduction: Kant's opinion on Aristotle's theory of categories." Studia Universitatis Babes-Bolyai - Philosophia no. 2:103-111.

Abstract: "This essay argues against Kant's reproach to Aristotle's deduction of categories as formulated in the Critique of the Pure Reason. In the first part we try to summarize the philosophical context in which Kant formulates his reproach, while in the second part we focus on Aristotle's perspective underlying philosophical aspects in the light of which Kant's objection seems unfounded. The most important aspects which our argumentation is based on are: first, we are dealing with two different philosophical intentions (categories of being versus categories of the understanding); secondly, Kant's reproach turns against him, so to speak, as he does not provide a principle of deduction either."

Gill, Mary Louise. 1984. "Aristotle on the Individuation of Changes." Ancient Philosophy no. 4:9-22.

Abstract: "In Physics V 4 Aristotle lists a set of conditions that must be met for a change to be an individual. This account should be viewed against the background of the Categories, where the problem of individuals is first addressed. In the Categories changes apparently fall into the two nonsubstance categories of doing and suffering. So one might expect that the characterization of individual changes in Physics V 4 will fit the account of individual nonsubstances proposed in the Categories. I do not think it does.

This paper aims to show how the two treatments differ and why individual changes require a different analysis from other nonsubstances."

———. 1995. "Aristotle on Substance and Predication." Ancient Philosophy no. 15:511-520.

"Michael Loux and Frank Lewis share a perspective about Aristotle's Metaphysics, though they defend their positions in quite different ways. They agree that Aristotle revised his view from the Categories, where he treats individual physical objects as primary οὐσίαι, or substances, and that he defends instead the primacy of substantial forms. They also agree that he adapts his theory of predication from the Categories to the project of the Metaphysics. On their view Aristotelian forms are universals, and the ultimate subject of predication is prime matter, a stuff that has no character in its own right but is a subject for other things. Since Loux and Lewis defend a similar position, I shall treat their views together.

(...)

In this discussion I shall focus on Aristotle's treatment of predication (a relation between entities, not between liguistic items), which Loux and Lewis takeAristotle to adapt from the Categories. I shall argue that he replaces that account with a more flexible scheme, but one that still yields the result that Loux and Lewis want: form predicated accidentally of matter. It also yields some results that they do not want: form predicated of the composite, and the composite predicated of matter. Some of these results are also unacceptable to Aristotle, and to avoid them he introduces a new relation between form and matter: form as actuality, and matter as potentiality." (p. 511)

Gillespie, Charles Melville. 1925. "The Aristotelian Categories." Classical Quarterly no. 19:79-84.

Reprinted in: J. Barnes, M. Schofield, R. Sorabji (eds.), Articles on Aristotle, 3. Metaphysics, London: Duckworth, 1979, pp. 1-12.

"The precise position to be assigned to the Categories in the Aristotelian system has always been somewhat of a puzzle. On the one hand, they seem to be worked into the warp of its texture, as in the classification of change, and Aristotle can argue from the premiss that they constitute an exhaustive division of the kinds of Being (An. Post. I. 22, p. 83 b 15). On the other hand, both in the completed scheme of his logic and in his constructive metaphysic they retire into the background, giving place to other notions, such as causation, change, actuality and potentiality." (p. 75)

(...)

"I shall accordingly assume in what follows that the scheme of the Categories was evolved in the course of efforts to establish a doctrine of judgment which should settle the difficulties raised by Megarian and other critics; that the application to the solution of the larger metaphysical problems was a later development ;(3) that the foundations of the scheme were laid in the Socratic tradition of the Academy; that the completed scheme is probably Aristotle's own; and that the original working out of the scheme did not contemplate extension beyond the metaphysics implied in predication to the more fundamental metaphysics of the First Philosophy. Hence we must look to the analysis of empirical propositions for the origin of the scheme." (p. 76)

(3) a Here I follow Maier [Die Syllogistik des Aristoteles, (3 voll., Leipzig: K. F. Koehler, 1896–1900)].

Gotthiel, Richard J. H. 1893. "The Syriac Versions of the Categories of Aristotle." Hebraica no. 9:166-215.

Reprint: Piscataway, NJ, Gorgias Press 2007.

Grafton-Cardwell, Patrick. 2021. "Understanding Mediated Predication in Aristotle’s Categories." Ancient Philosophy no. 41:443-462.

Abstract: "I argue there are two ways predication relations can hold according to the Categories: they can hold directly or they can hold mediately. The distinction between direct and mediated predication is a distinction between whether or not a given prediction fact holds in virtue of another predication fact’s holding. We can tell Aristotle endorses this distinction from multiple places in the text where he licenses an inference from one predication fact’s holding to another predication fact’s holding. The best explanation for each such inference is that he takes some predication facts to be mediated by others. Once the distinction between direct and mediated predication has been explained and argued for, I show how it can help solve a persistent problem for the traditional view of non-substantial particulars in the Categories—that is, the view that non-substantial particulars are particular in the sense of being non-recurrent. Along with vindicating the traditional view, the direct/mediated predication distinction gives us a distinctive way of understanding what it is for something to be recurrent (or non-recurrent) as well as a better understanding of Aristotle’s broader commitments in the Categories as a whole."

Graham, Daniel W. 1987. Aristotle's Two Systems. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Contents: "Preface VII; List of figures XIV; Abbreviations XV; 1. The Two Systems Hypothesis 1; 2. S1: Atomic Substantialism 20; 3. S2: Hylomorphic Substantialism 57; 4. The Incommensurability of the Systems 84; 5. The Hylomorphic Turn 119; 6. The Growth of S2: The Four Causes 156; 7. The Growth of S2: Potentiality and Actuality183; 8. The Paradoxes of Substance: Matter 207; 9. The Paradoxes of Substance: Form 233; 10. S2 Without S1: What Aristotle Should Have Said 263; 11. The Two Systems Theory as an Interpretation of Aristotle 290; References 333; Index Locorum 347; Subject Index 354-359.

"The idea for this study emerged while I was still working on my dissertation, which I wrote on a topic in Aristotle's philosophy of action. As I was researching the history of the potentiality- actuality distinction, I discovered that Aristotle did not use his word 'matter' anywhere in the logical works. The discovery was a discovery only to me; it had long been known. Yet it seemed amazing to me that a principle as important as that of matter should not appear in so large a body of work. Did this omission have important consequences for the interpretation of Aristotle? I found that interpreters saw the omission as at most a curiosity; after all, the subject-matter of the logical works was unique. Yet the same interpreters had long ago abandoned the assumption that the logical works were purely devoted to logic. In particular, the Categories is commonly taken to be a prime source of information about Aristotle's early metaphysical theory. But how could Aristotle have formulated anything like this mature metaphysical theory without the matter-form distinction? Was the unity of Aristotle's thought not really an illusion? Were there not really two sets of theories, two metaphysical conceptions, two philosophical systems?" (p. VII)

(...)

"In what follows I have tried to give my vision of Aristotle's two systems concrete expression in an argument with historical, philological, but above all philosophical dimensions. If the argument is right, a fact about Aristotle's development that has been relegated to asides and footnotes should have a central place in interpretations of Aristotle--should be a point of departure for many studies and provide a limit of inquiry for others. At present few scholars would agree with such claims. To be sure, many would grant that the metaphysical assumptions of the Categories are different from those of the Metaphysics; but this fact does not seem to have any far-reaching implications for their interpretations of Aristotle, and so I infer that they do not subscribe to a dualistic interpretative theory. A mere handful of scholars have advocated a two-systems theory in some form or other, and I believe that there is only one person who holds the Two Systems Theory with all its ramifications. However, as Socrates has taught us, it does not matter what the many think, but what the expert in truth has to say--that is, what the outcome of the argument is." (p. IX)

Granger, Edgar Herbert. 1980. "A Defense of the Traditional Position Concerning Aristotle's Non-Substantial Particulars." Journal of Philosophy no. 10:593-606.

"In this paper I shall defend the traditional claim that Aristotle's nonsubstantial particulars discussed in the second chapter of the Categories are unsharable particulars against G. E. L. Owen's claim that they are sharable universals. I shall proceed by presenting first a sketch of the traditional position that makes explicit why it holds that non-substantial particulars are unsharable particulars. (1) Secondly, I shall sketch Owen's position and recount how it differs in certain important respects from the traditional position. (2) Thirdly, I shall present some of my own considerations that I believe support the traditional position at the expense of Owen's position. Finally, I shall offer what I take to be the primary reason Aristotle was committed to the existence of such odd items as non-substantial particulars." (pp. 593-594)

(1) My reconstruction of the traditional position is based on the following sources: W. D. Ross, Aristotle, 5th ed. (London: Methuen, 1949): 23-24, 24, n. 1 (hereafter cited as Arist.); J. R. Jones, "Are the Qualities of Particular Things Universal or Particular?" Philosophical Review 58 (1949): 152-156, 162-163; G. E. M. Anscombe and P. T. Geach, Three Philosophers: Aristotle, Aquinas and Frege (Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 1961): 8-10; R. E. Allen, "Individual Properties in Aristotle's Categories," Phronesis 14 (1969): 31-32; Ignacio Angelelli, Studies on Gottlob Frege and Traditional Philosophy (New York: Humanities Press, 1967): 12-15. Angelelli's account is especially important because it reflects the opinion of scholars from late antiquity to the present.

(2) G. E. L. Owen, "lnherence," Phronesis 10 (1965): 97-105.

———. 1984. "Aristotle on Genus and Differentia." Journal of the History of Philosophy no. 22:1-23.

Abstract: "In Aristotle's writings there are at least three accounts of the nature of genus and differentia. These accounts may be briefly described in these terms: (I) genus and differentia are radically distinct in character, and the genus is the more important element in the definition; (II) genus and differentia are very similar in character and importance; (III) genus and differentia are similar in character, but the differentia is the more important element in the definition. These accounts represent, I believe, three stages in the development of Aristotle's thought. In this paper I shall examine each account and explain, at least in part, why Aristotle adopts them."

Granieri, Roberto. 2016. "Systems of Predication. Aristotle’s Categories in Topics, I, 9." Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale no. 27:1-18.

Abstract: "In this paper I investigate Aristotle’s account of predication in Topics, I, 9. I argue for the following interpretation. In this chapter Aristotle (I) presents two systems of predication cutting across each other, the system of the so-called four ‘predicables’ and of the ten ‘categories’, in order to distinguish them and explore their mutual relationship. I propose a semantic interpretation of the relationship between them. According to this reading, every proposition formed through a predicable constitutes at the same time a predication according to one of the ten categories, and, consequently, signifies one of them, expressing one of the predicative relationship conveyed by them. Further, Aristotle (II) explains the predicative connection between these two systems and the ten items signified by the ‘things said without any combination’ enumerated in Chapter 4 of the Categories, whose list is almost identical with that of categories in Top., I, 9, with the only exception of their first members."

Gregoric, Pavel. 2006. "Quantities and Contraries: Aristotle's Categories 6, 5b11-6a18." Apeiron no. 39:341-358.

"The immediate purpose of this paper is fairly modest. I would like to provide an analysis of Aristotle's three counterexamples to his claim that no quantity has a contrary in Categories 6. I will have something to say about Aristotle's discussion of the first two counterexamples, although the bulk of my paper will be devoted to his discussion of the third counterexample at 6a11-18,a passage which has not received due attention by modem commentators. My analysis will then provide a basis for some suggestions of wider significance.

In Categories 6, 5b11 Aristotle introduces one salient characteristic of quantities, namely that none of them has a contrary (enantion). Immediately following the statement of this characteristic, Aristotle takes on an anticipated objection. The objection consists of two counterexamples: to the many the contrary is the few, to something large the contrary is something small. Each pair of terms is supposed to present a counterexample to Aristotle's characteristic for one type of quantity: the former pair for discrete quantities, the latter for continuous quantities. Aristotle takes each pair of terms in turn,and shows that what they introduce are (a) neither quantities (b) nor contraries." (p. 341)

Hacking, Ian. 2001. "Aristotelian Categories and Cognitive Domains." Synthese no. 126:473-515.

Abstract: "This paper puts together an ancient and a recent approach to classificatory language, thought, and ontology.It includes on the one hand an interpretation of Aristotle's ten categories, with remarks on his first category, called (or translated as) substance in the Categories or What a thing is in the Topics. On the other hand is the idea of domain-specific cognitive abilities urged in contemporary developmental psychology. Each family of ideas can be used to understand the other. Neither the metaphysical nor the psychological approach is intrinsically more fundamental; they complement each other. The paper incidentally clarifies distinct uses of the word 'category' in different disciplines, and also attempts to make explicit several notions of 'domain'. It also examines Aristotle's most exotic and least discussed categories, being-in-a-position (e.g., sitting) and having-(on) (e.g., armour). Finally the paper suggests a tentative connection between Fred Sommers' theory of types and Aristotle's first category."

Hadgopoulos D. J. 1976. "The Definition of the Predicables in Aristotle." Phronesis.A Journal for Ancient Philosophy no. 6:110-126.

"It is a common belief among Aristotelian scholars that, according to Aristotle, per se accidents are properties in the following sense of the word:

Top. 102: a Property that which, while not showing the essence of its subject, belongs counterpredicated of thing.

But in 1970, Jonathan Barnes published a paper(1), where he defended the view that per se accidents are not properties. A consequence of this was that the 'predicables' were not well defined by Aristotle.

In this paper, I will try to show that Barnes is mistaken. The argument he offers in support of his view seems to be a very good one, but it involves a faulty move." (p. 110)

(1) Barnes, Jonathan, "Property in Aristotle's Topics", Archiv fur Geschichte der Philosophie 52 (1970) 136-155.

Hamlyn, David W. 1961. "Aristotle on Predication." Phronesis.A Journal for Ancient Philosophy no. 6:110-126.

"In dealing with the Greek Philosophers we tend to take the notion of predication for granted: we tend to assume that we have the right to use the term 'predicate' without question, in discussing the theories put forward by e.g. Plato and Aristotle. An example of this tendency is the common assertion that Plato held that the Forms were self-predicable. While this assertion may be in some sense true, it does assume that the notion of predication may be taken for granted. This assumption is, perhaps, partly due to a further assumption that the notion of predication is a logical or even grammatical notion, and that Plato and Aristotle must therefore have seen its importance and employed it accordingly. I wish to question that assumption in Aristotle's case.

I have already questioned it in connection with Plato,(1) saying that Plato was continually trying to account for what we should call predication in terms of notions akin to that of identity. It is tempting to assume that because Aristotle had the term 'predicate' at his disposal, he must have known all about the notion. It is moreover, a feasible suggestion that in Aristotle 'κατηγορέιν' is a technical term the origins of which are obvious. The use of the phrase 'κατηγορέιν τι κατά τινος' stems from legal contexts; it thus comes to mean 'to maintain or assert something of something' and it perhaps retains something of an accusatorial aura.

But while the use of the phrase implies that Aristotle knew in some sense something about what it is to assert something of another thing, it does not imply that he could ipso facto provide the correct theory about it. What is true is that the trend of Aristotle's metaphysical thought led him towards a view of predication which involved treating it as something much more than a mere grammatical notion." (p. 110)

(1) See my "The Communion of Forms and the Development of Plato's Logic" Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 5. No. 21, I9S5, pp. 289 ff.

———. 1978. "Focal Meaning." Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society no. 78:1-18.

"In recent years much philosophical scholarship has been devoted to the place in Aristotle's thinking of what G. E. L. Owen has called 'focal meaning'; and much is due to Professor Owen in particular in this connexion. Less attention has perhaps been given to the question whether Aristotle should be complimented on that idea - whether, that is, the concept is one that we should welcome and accept into our inherited philosophical treasury. It is this question with which I am mainly concerned in this paper; a full answer would no doubt

demand a broader conspectus of Aristotle's thought than I can take in the space available." (p. 1)

(...)

"I have pointed out that the explanation of the uses of 'healthy' by reference to health provides no true instances of primary and secondary uses or senses of a word, let alone cases. But when Aristotle says the substance is said to be in the primary way while things in the other categories are said to be in a secondary way we may be provided with an instance of primary and secondary senses, or so it might appear. In fact we are not provided with this in a technical sense, since Aristotle does not operate with a sense and reference distinction. That is why I, as in effect Aristotle normally does, put the point in terms of something's being said to be in a primary or secondary way.

That homonymy is for Aristotle something that belongs to things in relation to words rather than to words simpliciter is notorious; hence he approaches the relation between words and things from the side of things, rather than from the side of words as we are perhaps inclined to do." (pp. 6-7)

Harari, Orna. 2011. "The Unity of Aristotle's Category of Relatives." Classical Quarterly no. 61:521-537.

"In Categories 7 Aristotle discusses relative terms, which he defines in the opening paragraph of this chapter as ‘things as are said to be just what they are, of or than other things, or in some other way in relation to something else’ (6a36–7).(1) In clarifying this definition, he presents two lists of examples; the first contains ‘greater’ and ‘double’ and the second contains ‘states’, ‘conditions’, ‘perception’, ‘knowledge’ and ‘position’ (6a38–b3). The terms of the second list seem to be foreign to this discussion. The definition of relatives and the terms presented in the first list suggest that relatives are incomplete predicates or relational attributes,(2) but states, conditions, perception, knowledge and position are complete predicates.

Linguistic usage does not require these terms to be followed by a preposition.

The difficulty involved in understanding the place of conditions and states in the category of relatives extends beyond linguistic considerations. Other linguistically complete predicates are included in Aristotle’s category of relatives, but their categorial status seems pretty obvious. ‘Slave’, for instance, is a linguistically complete term, but it can easily be construed as implicitly referring to the correlative ‘master’: that is, the proposition ‘x is a slave’ may be construed as implying the proposition ‘x is a slave of y (when y stands for x’s master). Similarly, the term ‘large’, though linguistically complete, implies (as Aristotle says in Categories 6) that its subject is larger than other things of its kind (5b15–20). By contrast, the categorial status of conditions and states remains uncertain, even if their correlatives are supplied, because they seem to be internal dispositions of their subjects rather than relational attributes." (p. 521)

(1) Ackrill’s translation.

(2) For this interpretation see J.L. Ackrill, Aristotle’s Categories and De Interpretatione (Oxford, 1962), 98; M. Mignucci, ‘Aristotle’s definition of relatives in Categories 7’, Phronesis 31 (1986), 101–29, at 103–4.

Harter, Edward D. 1975. "Aristotle on Primary ΟΥΣΙΑ." Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie no. 57:1-20.

"In Categories 1-5 Aristotle argues that the primary ουσία (the most fundamental sort of being there is) is the concrete individual and that the secondary ουσία (the second-most fundamental sort of being there is) is the είδος (species) or γένος (genus) of a concrete individual. In Metaphysics Z-H he argues that the primary ουσία is the είδος of a concrete individual, that the secondary ουσία is the concrete individual, and that the γένος is not ουσία at all.

This raises some serious questions concerning the Categories, the Metaphysics, and primary ουσία.

Some scholars have maintained that this difference between the two treatises is merely apparent (e. g., terminological) and that the doctrine in the Metaphysics does not conflict with the one in the Categories; others that it is real and that the doctrine in the Metaphysics is the precise contrary of the one in the Categories.

l believe that neither of these views is correct, and I shall argue that the difference is indeed real but that it does not consist in this simple volte-face. The difference consists in the fact that in the Metaphysics εϊδος is conceived as the particular form, and not merely the universal species, of a concrete individual, whereas it is not so conceived in the Categories; this marks a radical development in Aristotle's metaphysical reasoning. I shall begin by developing briefly each of the two doctrines of ουσία (Section I); I shall then examine the relations between them (Sections II—IV); and I shall conclude by making some general observations on the Categories and the Metaphysics (Section -V)." (p. 1)

Hegarty, Seamus. 1969. "Aristotle’s Notion of Quantity and Modern Mathematics." Philosophical Studies (Dublin) no. 18:25-35.

Heinaman, Robert. 1981. "Non-Substantial Individuals in the Categories." Phronesis.A Journal for Ancient Philosophy no. 26 (295):307.

Abstract: "There is a dispute as to what sort of entity non-substantial individuals are in Aristotle's Categories. The traditional interpretation holds that non-substantial individuals are individual qualities, quantities, etc. For example, Socrates' white is an individual quality belonging to him alone, numerically distinct from (though possibly specifically identical with) other individual colors. I will refer to these sorts of entities as 'individual instances.'

The new interpretation (1) suggests instead that non-substantial individuals are atomic species such as a specific shade of white that is indivisible into more specific shades. On this view, non-substantial individuals are what we would call universals (2) which can be present in different individual substances, but are labelled 'individuals' by Aristotle because, like individual substances, there is nothing they are said of. (3)

In this paper I will defend the traditional account by attempting to show that it is supported by the slender textual evidence that is available. I will begin by stating three serious objections to the traditional interpretation. Next I will show that in works later than the Categories Aristotle accepted individual instances of properties of the sort found in the Categories by the traditional interpretation. Finally, I will set out the evidence that supports the traditional interpretation and answer the three objections."

(1) G. E. L. Owen, "Inherence," Phronesis (1965), pp. 97-105; Michael Frede, "Individuen bei Aristoteles," Antike and Abendland (1978), pp. 16-31. In fact, it is not clear to me what Professor Frede considers non-substantial individuals to be. While he refers approvingly to Owen, Owen's account collapses the distinction between είδει εν and ἀριθμό εν in the case of non-substances whereas it appears that Frede wishes to retain this distinction (pp. 23-24). Since he does not explain what individual non-substances which are numerically different but specifically identical are supposed to be or in virtue of what they are numerically different, by the "new interpretation" I will mean solely that explained in the text.

(2) This is not, as Allen, Matthews and Cohen think, an objection to the new interpretation (R. E. Allen, "Individual Properties in Aristotle's Categories," Phronesis (1969), p. 37; Gary Matthews and S. Marc Cohen, "The One and the Many," Review of Metaphysics (1968), pp. 640-41). There is no justification for the presupposition that Aristotle must have used the terms 'individual' and 'universal' in the Categories in the same way as in later works or as they are used today. (Of course, the word καθόλου' does not appear in the Categories).

(3) That is, for any individual x there is no y such that the name and definition of x are predicable of y (2a19-27).

Hetherington, Stephen. 1984. "A Note on Inherence." Ancient Philosophy:218-223.

"In Aristotle's Categories (2a34-b6: see also Meta. VII. 1), the category of substance is claimed to be prior in existence to the various categories of nonsubstance.

This priority is articulated in the Categories largely via Aristotle's relation of inherence. The latter is one of two relations whereby Aristotle purports to quarter the furniture of the world, the members of the categories. The other is that of 'being said of'. The quartering is effected thus (Cat. 1 a20-b9): some things are said of others but are not in anything: other things are said of a subject as well as being in a subject: still others are not said of anything, but are in a subject: the rest are neither said of nor in something; and these four combinations are mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive.

Now, while the said-of relation is fairly straightforward, the inherence relation is not. According to Cat. 2a1 9-26, y is said of x if and only if y's name and y's definition, or account, are both predicated of x. And y is in x if and only if... what?

There are several competing interpretations of Aristotle's inherence relation, but it is not my aim in this paper to choose among them. I do want, however, to sharpen the terms of the debate by formulating a particularly important one of those interpretations, G .E.L. Owen's, much more clearly than it has hitherto been formulated.

We will then be in a better position to evaluate the various merits of Owen's interpretation, some of which, up to now, have not been clearly perceived. Aristotle's notion of inherence is a technical one, but it is one that relies on a comparatively nontechnical notion of inherence. We shall see that understanding the latter is the key to the former, and hence that once the technical notion is precisely understood, Owen's interpretation can itself be properly assessed." (p. 218, notes omitted)

Hintikka, Jaakko. 1959. "Aristotle and the Ambiguity of Ambiguity." Inquiry no. 2:137-151.

Reprinted as Chapter 1 in: J. Hintikka, Time and Necessity. Studies in Aristotle's Theory of Modality, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973 pp. 1-26.

"Chapter I is a revised and expanded version of a paper which appeared under the same title in Inquiry, 2 (1959), 137-51. In its present form it also incorporates most of my note, 'Different Kinds of Equivocation in Aristotle', Journal of the History of Philosophy, 9 (1971), 368-72." (Time and Necessity, Preface, VII).

"Homonymy v. synonymyAristotle explains his sense of homonymy (together with that of the contrary notion of synonymy) in the beginning of the Categories.

According to these explanations, two things are synonymous if both the same name (i.e. term) and the same definition (λόγος) are applicable to them. They are homonymous if they share only the name, the definitions (λόγοι) being different in the two cases. (In these definitions, λόγος should perhaps be understood as an explanatory phrase or an account of the meaning of the name rather than as a definition.) I have already pointed out that Aristotle sometimes violates his own definition of homonymy.

Similarly, he violates the definition of synonymy at least once by calling a pair of objects synonyms although, according to his own considered judgement, they share only the name but not the definition. (6)

These violations are little more than occasional reversions to looser usage. But in another respect Aristotle violates the definitions of homonymy and synonymy given in Categories 1 almost systematically. In so far as the definitions are concerned, only things can be called homonymous or synonymous, not words. And two things can be called synonymous only if the same term is applied to them. Both these limitations are transgressed by Aristotle. A word is said to be homonymous in De Gen. et Corr. 1 6. 322b29 ff.; (7) and similar uses of the notion of synonymy are found in Top. VIII 13. 162b37, Soph. El. 5. 167a24 and in Rhet. III 2. 1404b37-1405a2. In many other passages, too, Aristotle is obviously interested exclusively in the word and not in the things to which it is applied. In fact, he sometimes seems to express synonymy and homonymy by such phrases as εν σεμαινειν and πολλά σεμαινειν (or πλείω σεμαινειν), respectively. In the sequel, we shall take the same liberty as Aristotle and talk about synonymy (homonymy) in connection both with certain terms and with the entities to which they are applied." (p. 9)

(6) See Met. A 6. 987b10; cf. 9. 990b6, 991a6, and Met. I 10. 1059a13.

(7) Cf. also Top. V 2. I 29b30 ff.

———. 1983. "Semantical Games, the Alleged Ambiguity of 'Is' and Aristotelian Categories." Synthese no. 54:443-468.

Reprinted in: J. Hintikka, Analysis of Aristotle. Selected Papers, Vol. 6, Dordrecht: Springer 2004, pp. 23-44.

"Our findings concerning the multiple relations between different semantical phenomena may thus be summed up in the form of a list of correlated distinctions. They amount to differences among the following:

(10) (i) Different wh-words (and phrases).

(ii) Different widest classes of entities over which English quantifiers can range.

(iii) Different uses of the existential is in English.

(iv) Different uses of the is of identity in English.

(v) Different uses of the predicative is in English.

(vi) Different classes (mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive) of simple predicates of English." (p. 35)

(..)

"Aristotelian categories reconstructed

At this point, a philosophical reader is likely to have a vivid déjà vu experience. For what seems to be emerging as a consequence of the basic assumptions of game-theoretical semantics is nothing but a modernized version of Aristotle’s doctrine of categories, not in its details (after all, Aristotle was dealing with a different language), but in all of its leading theoretical ideas. Aristotelian scholars have found the combination of different ideas in Aristotle’s distinction between different categories intensely puzzling. These different aspects of Aristotle’s theory include the following:

(11) (i) Different questions one can ask about a given entity, and hence different question words (and certain related phrases) in a language. (Cf. Ockham (Loux), pp. 8–9; Ackrill, p. 79; Gomperz, p. 39; Kahn, passim.) Several scholars have argued on this basis that Aristotle’s distinction is firmly based on the structure of Greek (Trendelenburg, Benveniste, Kahn).

(ii) Different highest predicates under one or other of which everything that is has to fall (Bonitz et al.).

(iii)–(v) Different senses of verbs for being in their different uses: (iii) existential, (iv) copulative (Apelt, etc.), (v) identifying.

(vi) Different widest classes of primitive predicates in the language in question. Indeed, (vi) is closest to Aristotle’s explanation of the categories in his Categoriae (see 1b25–2a10)." (pp. 35-36)

References

Apelt, O.: 1891, Beiträge zur Geschichte der griechischen Philosophie, Leipzig.

Benveniste, Emile: 1966, ‘Categories de pensée et catégories de langue’, in Problèmes de linguistique générale, Gallimard, Paris, pp. 63–74.

Bonitz, Hermann: 1853, Uber die Kategorien des Aristoteles, Staatsdruckerei, Vienna.

Gomperz, Theodor: 1912, Greek T hinkers, vol. 4 (tr. by G.G. Berry), Murray, London.

Kahn, Charles: 1978, ‘Questions and categories’, in Henry Hiz (ed.), Questions, D. Reidel, Dordrecht, pp. 227–78.

Loux, Michael J.: 1974, translator and editor, Ockham’s Theory of Terms, Notre Dame.

Trendelenburg, Adolf: 1846, Geschichte der Kategorienlehre, Bethge, Berlin.

———. 1986. "The Varieties of Being in Aristotle." In The Logic of Being: Historical Studies, edited by Knuuttila, Simo and Hinitkka, Jaakko, 81-114. Dodrecht: Kluwer.

"In this paper, I shall try to enhance our understanding of Aristotle's thought by relating it to certain contemporary problems and insights of philosophical logicians. Now one of the most central current issues in philosophical logic is a challenge to a hundred-year old dogma. Almost all twentieth-century philosophers in English-speaking countries have followed Frege and Russell and claimed that the words for being in natural languages - "is", "ist", ἔστι, etc. - are ambiguous between the is of predication, the is of existence, the is of identity, and the generic is. The significance of this ambiguity thesis has not been limited to topical discussions but has extended to historical studies, including studies of ancient Greek philosophy." (p. 81).

(...)

"One of the most fundamental and most perplexing questions concerning Aristotle's distinction between different categories is: What is being distinguished from each other? What is Aristotle classifying in separating the different categories from each other?"

(...)

"Scholars have debated intensively which of these different things Aristotle "reaJly" meant. For example, one persuasion maintains that the categories represent the different kinds of questions one can (according to Aristotle) ask of a given entity. This view is in different variants held by among others Ockham, Charles Kahn, Benveniste, and Ackrill.

Other scholars hold that Aristotelian categories are what he says they are, predicables. Others, led by the formidable Hermann Bonitz, have held that categories were for Aristotle first and foremost the widest genera of entities." (p. 100)

(...)

"Still others have held that Aristotle's category distinction is primarily a differentiation between several senses of esti, a reminder of the "systematic ambiguity" of words for being in Aristotle. This view is found, e.g., in Phys. A 2, 185 b 25 - 32. Among commentators, it has been represented by Heinrich Maier, and in a sense it can be maintained that G. E. L. Owen is another case in point. He has certainly been followed by a host of younger scholars." (pp. 100-101)

Hood, Pamela M. 2004. Aristotle on the Category of Relation. Washington: The University Press of America.

Contents: Preface IX; Acknowledgements XI; Part One: The Exegesis; Chapter 1: The Critics' Charges 1; Chapter 2: Categories 7 21; Chapter 3: Metaphysics V.15 55; Chapter 4: Interpreting Aristole's Relatives 85; Chapter 5: Epistemological Issues; Chapter 6: Conclusion 141; Notes 143; Bibliography 147; Index 151-154.

"Many philosophers believe that Aristotle does not have, and indeed could not have, a theory of relation, even one that accounts for relations involving two terms, i.e., dyadic relations. Aristotle's logical, metaphysical and ontological views, especially his substance-accident ontology, are seen as restricting Aristotle to only one-place or monadic relations, and prohibiting the logical space for a separate entity, relation, to exist. Hence, Aristotle's conception of relation is perceived to be so divergent from our own that it does not count as a theory of relation at all. I aim to show that the critics are wrong to speak so poorly of Aristotle's account of relation.

I argue that Aristotle's theory has some of the basic features that a theory of relation must have. I begin in Part One by sketching out the critics' charges. I then outline the main features of Aristotle's philosophy that inform his treatment of the category of relation, and briefly survey Aristotle's discussion of relational issues scattered throughout the corpus. Next, I present an exegesis of Aristotle's two central texts on relation, Categories 7 and Metaphysics V 15, and discuss the various accounts of relational entities or relatives therein. In Part Two, I examine two problems. First, I address the problem of how best to interpret Aristotle's relatives. Second, I explore the epistemological difficulties stemming from Aristotle's view in the Categories that relation involves two relative items or terms and that if one relative item is known definitely the other item must also be known definitely.

I conclude that Aristotle's treatment of relatives reveals his commitment to the view that there be a dyad, i.e., at least two items, involved in a relation. Furthermore, I show that Aristotle includes in his theory something that accounts for the relation itself, i.e., something approaching a logical relational predicate. I do not suggest that Aristotle attempts to construct a relational theory comparable to our own. But I do suggest that given Aristotle's grasp of the dyadic nature of relation, we have good reason to believe Aristotle's theory of relation is more robust than many suspect." (Preface, p. IX)

Husik, Isaac. 1904. "On the Categories of Aristotle." The Philosophical Review no. 13:514-528.

Reprinted (conjoined with Husik 1939) in: I. Husik, The Categories of Aristotle (1942).

"The little treatise of Aristotle which stands at the head of the Organon has caused a great deal of difficulty to students, both ancient and modern. The bulk of the discussion has centered about the question of its place in the Organon and in Aristotle's system, and the character of the ten categories to which the greater part of the book is devoted. But there have been found also critics who expressed a doubt as to the authenticity of all or part of the treatise in question. To say nothing of the ancient commentators of Aristotle, the earliest attempt in modern times to cast a doubt on the genuineness of the work seems to be that of Spengel in Münchener Gelehrte Anzeigen, 1845, Vol. XX, No. 5, pp. 41 sq. He was followed by Prantl in Zeitschrift für Alterthumswissenschaft, 1846, p. 646, and in his Geschichte der Logik, I, p. 90, Note. 5, also by Valentinus Rose in De Aristotelis librorum ordine et auctoritate, p. 234 sq. Zeller, on the other hand (Philos. d. Griechen, second edition, II, pt. 2, p. 67, note i), decides in favor of the genuineness of the first part of the work, the Categories proper, and against the so-called Postpraedicamenta from ch. X to the end." (p. 514)

(...)

"I have shown, I trust, not only that the treatise of the Categories is closely related to that of the Topics, but also that it was written before the latter and serves as a basis for it upon which it builds, very often going beyond the Categories. This applies to the first nine chapters, properly called Categories, in the same measure as to the Postpraedicamenta. The unity of the book of the Categories as we now have it is also maintained by Valentinus Rose (De Arist. libr. ord., etc., p. 235). Ergo, the whole work is genuine, and its peculiar character is to be explained on the ground of its being one of the earliest attempts of Aristotle." (p. 528)

———. 1939. "The Authenticity of Aristotle's Categories." Journal of Philosophy no. 36:427-431.

With a postrscrit by William David Ross.

Reprinted (conjoined with Husik 1904) in: I. Husik, The Categories of Aristotle (1942).

"Habent sua fata libelli. Thirty-four years ago I published a paper, "On the Categories of Aristotle," in the Philosophical Review.(2) Like the case of the proverbial Irishman who desired to be buried in a Jewish cemetery because that was the last place the devil would look for an Irishman, so it seems that the Philosophical Review at that time was the last place where an Aristotelian scholar would look for a literary-historical article on the Categories of Aristotle. And so the article was stillborn. No European student of Aristotle knew about it and it did not find its way into the bibliographies of the subject. Dupréel, whose article on the same subject appeared five years later,(3) does not refer to my article and shows no knowledge of it." (p. 427)

(...)

"There would be no point in reproducing here the arguments advanced in my article of long ago. All I need do here is to give the gist of the argument, which can be done in a few sentences.

An examination of the treatise of the Categories and a comparison thereof with the Topics, in respect of terminology, style, and doctrine, proves conclusively that they are either the work of one author or that one was a close and deliberate imitator of the other. The same examination shows that the Categories was written before the Topics. Hence, since no one doubts the genuineness of the Topics, the Categories must be equally genuine, for no one has suggested that some one before Aristotle wrote the Categories, which Aristotle imitated in the Topics.

Dupréel, as I said before, is the only one who has made a considerable contribution to the question since my article was published.

His argument has no point of contact with mine, for he compares the Categories not with the Topics, but with the Metaphysics, and finds that they do not agree in doctrine.

I have no reason to quarrel with Dupréel when he tries to show that the first nine chapters, the categories proper, and the last six chapters, the Postpraedicamenta, are a unit and the work of the same author, for my comparison of the treatise with the Topics has led me to the same conclusion." (p. 429)

(2) Vol. XIII (1904), pp. 514-528. "Differences" on page 517, line 10 from bottom, should read "diffuseness."

———. 1942. "The Categories of Aristotle." In Philosophical Essays in Honor of Edgar Arthur Singer Jr., edited by Clarke, F. P. and Nahm, C. M., 317-334. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Two articles conjoined: "The Categories of Aristotle" (1930) and "On the Categories of Aristotle" (1904).

Reprinted in: I. Husik, Philosophical Essays. Ancient, Mediaeval, and Modern, Edited by Milton C. Nahm and Leo Strauss, Oxford: Blackwell, 1952, pp. 96-112.

Irwin, Terence H. 1981. "Homonymy in Aristotle." The Review of Metaphysics no. 34:523-544.

"What, then, are Aristotle's conditions for homonymy and multivocity?

It is often assumed that the conditions are different, but that they both reflect differences in the senses of words. 1 I will argue" that each of these assumptions is less than the whole truth; homonymy and multivocity are often the same, and neither is intended to mark different senses of words." (pp. 523-524, note omitted)

(...)

[Aristotle] search for homonymy is not meant to encourage skepticism about the existence of essences for words to name, but to forestall skepticism that might result from the rejection of the Platonic attempt to see one essence for every name; Aristotle does not want to renounce the search for essences, but only to recognize different essences correlated with the same name. While the Wittgensteinian arguments about family resemblance are arguments against essentialism, Aristotle's arguments are a defence of essentialism. The difficulties in his doctrine of homonymy are difficulties in his general views about real essences." (p. 544)

Jacobs, William. 1979. "Aristotle and Nonreferring Subjects." Phronesis.A Journal for Ancient Philosophy no. 24:282-300.

"It is a widely accepted view amongst scholars that Aristotle believed that the subject of an assertion might fail to refer. Two texts, De Interpretatione xi 21 a 25-28 and Categories x 13 b 12-35, are generally cited as evidence for this belief. In this paper I will argue that both passages have previously been misunderstood and that Aristotle did not accept the possible referential failure of the subject of an assertion. In Section I, after first discussing the standard interpretations of both texts, I note the difficulties which result from these accounts. In Section II I offer a brief general argument showing that Aristotle's own account of what an assertion is implies that it is impossible for the subject of an assertion to fail to refer. In Section III I present my own analysis of each passage and show that when properly understood neither is in any way concerned with the problem of referential failure." (p. 282)

Jacquette, Dale. 2012. "Brentano on Aristotle’s Categories: First Philosophy and the Manifold Senses of Being." In Franz Brentano's Psychology and Metaphysics: Upon the Sesquicentennial of Franz Brentano’s Dissertation, edited by Tănăsescu, Ion, 53-94. Bucharest: Zeta Books.

"Brentano’s 1862 dissertation, Von der mannigfachen Bedeutung des Seienden nach Aristoteles, is a scholarly historical study and philosophical consideration of Aristotle’s theory of categories.

The categories in Aristotle’s first philosophy, as Brentano interprets them, are the mutually independent predicates of being at the highest levels of generality, in the variety of ways in which we speak about being. If correctly identified, the categories should correspond exactly to the multiple modes of existence or ways of being that are available to primary substances in the actual world as Aristotle conceptualizes them. As such, they are the categories not only of our predicative thoughts, but of the real existence of primary substances.

Aristotle’s categories accordingly constitute the rock bottom of his first philosophy. They are his ontology, built on the Greek word “ontos” for “being”; or, better, melding “ousia” as Aristotle’s Greek term for ‘substance’, they are the fundamental concepts of his ousiology. The categories as the hierarchy of ways in which substance can have being are at the heart of Aristotle’s metaphysics in his theory of pure being, of being as such or being qua being. To the extent that Aristotle’s conceptual scheme for the being of substances captures the truth about the real objects whose multiple senses of being are thereby conceptualized, the categories of an Aristotelian first philosophy, as Brentano understands them, systematize the nature of being itself, of the most general ways and general senses in which anything can exist or be correctly said to exist. These not merely correspond to but are constitutive of the manifold ways in which being can be intelligibly predicated of things." (pp. 53-54 a note omitted)

Jansen, Ludger. 2011. "Aristotle's Categories." Topoi no. 26:153-158.

"We need reliable techniques of information retrieval: search engines, indices, and categorisation.

Faced with such an urgent need for categorisation, a book on categories is more than welcome.

Aristotle, a young philosopher from Athens in Greece with a Macedonian background, has now published a philosophical investigation on this topic.

Such could be the beginning of a review of Aristotle’s Categories, were it published today. The aim of this essay as an ‘‘Untimely Review’’ is to speculate how such a review would continue. Such an exercise in counterfactual history is easier when we review some neglected and hitherto uninfluential text. For such a text can really have a fresh impact on contemporary philosophy, whereas a classic text, being neither neglected nor uninfluential, is, as a rule, already an active force that has shaped and continues to shape the philosophical landscape. This applies in particular in the case of Aristotle’s Categories, which has been for more than two millennia one of the most influential textbooks in philosophy." (p. 353)

(...)

"How could such a review conclude? Maybe thus: Aristotle’ Categories can help to find our way around the internet. The first question of any retrieval technique that is more than a search for strings of characters should be: To which category does the thing that I am searching for belong? Aristotle’s little treatise suggests helpful changes in perspective that could benefit contemporary ontology, and especially the steadily growing field of applied ontology. They can give new impulses towards applications in biomedical, legal or business information sciences, but also inspire new work on the old question: What is being?" (p. 158)

Jones, Barrington. 1972. "Individuals in Aristotle's Categories." Phronesis.A Journal for Ancient Philosophy:107-123.

"With the publication of J. L. Ackrill's translation of the Categories(1) and G. E. L. Owen's paper "Inherence"(2) a dispute has arisen over what Aristotle means in that work by an individual where the individuals in question are not prime substances. The bulk of published opinion has favoured Ackrill's account of the matter,(3) an account which is also found in the writings of W. D. Ross and Miss Anscombe.(4) However, this account involves certain difficulties.

The major difficulty is an internal one, the question of the interpretation of 2 a 34-b 6. This passage is described by Ackrill as "compressed and careless,"(5) while Owen claims that the matter "is put beyond question" in favour of his own view by the lines, and that "by themselves they settle the issue."(6) A second immediate difficulty is that such non-substantial individuals do not seem to reappear elsewhere in the Aristotelian corpus and are absent even from his discussion of the various categories in the Categories itself." (p. 107)

(...)

"Accordingly, I wish to re-examine the issue. I shall try to show that what Aristotle means by a non-substantial individual is fully captured by neither of the two current accounts, that 2 a 34-b 6 has been misconstrued by both parties, that Aristotle's account is entirely reasonable, relying simply on an accurate observation of what is presupposed by the activity of counting, and, finally, that the account offered in the present paper enables us to understand aright his distinction between synonymy, homonymy and paronymy.(9)" (p. 108)

(1) Aristotle's Categories and De Interpretatione (Oxford, 1963).

(2) Phronesis, X (1965), pp. 97-105.

(3) v. J. M. E. Moravcsik, "Aristotle on Predication," Philosophical Review, LXXVI (1967), pp. 80-96; G. B. Matthews and S. M. Cohen, "The One and the Many," Review of Metaphysics, XXI (1968), pp. 630-655; R. E. Allen, "Individual Properties in Aristotle's Categories," Phronesis, XIV (1969), pp. 31-39.

(4) W. D. Ross, Aristotle (London, 1923), p. 24, n.1.; G. E. M. Anscombe and P. T. Geach, Three Philosophers (New York, 1961), pp. 7-10.

(5) Ackrill, p. 83.

(6) "Inherence," p. 100.

(9) I shall suppose that the Categories is a genuine work of Aristotle's. Unless otherwise indicated, all translations from the Categories are those of Ackrill and all translations from elsewhere in the corpus are my own. The technical vocabulary of the Categories is used according to Ackrill's translation throughout.

———. 1975. "An Introduction to the First Five Chapters of Aristotle's Categories." Phronesis.A Journal for Ancient Philosophy no. 20:146-172.

"In an earlier paper (1) I have argued that a satisfactory account of Aristotle's postulation of individuals, both substantial and nonsubstantial, in the Categories can be achieved by taking seriously his characterization of these individuals as things that are 'one in number' and by interpreting this characterization as 'a unit in a possible act of enumeration'. This approach to the Categories as important consequences for the interpretation of the remainder of the work.

In this essay I wish to present an account of the first five chapters (bar chapter 4 which lays out the categories themselves) based on the former paper.

In particular, I wish to examine the fourfold division of 'the things that are' in chapter 2 and the two relations of 'being said of' and 'being in' (or, rather, 'existing in') that are used to construct this fourfold division, and the nature of 'primary substance' (or, rather, 'primary being') and the basis for its distinction from 'secondary substance' (or, rather, 'secondary being'). The account that will be developed here is substantially and importantly different from any other that I am aware of, and, even if it does not secure conviction, its publication will hopefully make the dogma that the Categories is a 'common-sensical' work less readily tenable and force a re-thinking of the usual account of the work." (p. 146)

(1) "Individuals in Aristotle's Categories," Phronesis, 17 (1972) 107-123.

Jones, J. R. 1949. "Are the Qualities of Particular Things Universal or Particular?" The Philosophical Review no. 58:152-170.

"There are some curious things in the opening chapters of Aristotle's Categoriae. One is the admission, which seems to justify Porphyry's inclusion of the species as a fifth predicable, that "man" can be predicated of "the individual man." Another is the hint of a sense in which the qualities of a particular thing share in its particularity.

A distinction drawn in the second chapter between "presence in a subject" and "assertability of a subject" yields a division of fundamental entities in which the opposition of "man" to "this individual man" is paralleled by a similar opposition of "white" to "this individual white." This doctrine is nowhere else repeated in Aristotle' and may have little relevance to a study of the development of the Peripatetic philosophy. But it does seem to me to provide a significant alternative to the view that all that is adjectival to a thing, that is, every quality of it, is universal. I have become increasingly dissatisfied with this view and would like, in what follows, to examine the alternative to it which seems to be implied in the passage of Aristotle's to which I am referring." [Cat. 1a, 16-1b, 9.] (p. 152)

(...)

"I submit that Aristotle pointed to the correct solution of his problem (but regrettably missed the significance of it) when he suggested that what is "present in" substance, namely, its accidents or attributes, can be "individual and one in number." For the moment it is thus recognized that characters may occur unrepeatably, the bare substantival "this" becomes clothed in the content of an adjectival or attributive "thisness" and its individual essence need no longer be sought in an empty material substratum.(34)

The view that characters are necessarily universals has been held by philosophers who have insisted that recognition presupposes acquaintance with a bare "this." But I should have thought it selfevident that an object which we may know by merely confronting must have content, as well as an existence, that is irrecurrably its own." (p. 170)

(34) It is sometimes claimed that Aristotle redeemed his doctrine of individual essence by suggesting that the individual may possess a distinct form as well as distinct matter, that is, content, as well as a substrate, that is irrecurrably its own. But, as Cook Wilson has seen, it is only in terms of a doctrine of particular qualities that this suggestion can be made good. Speaking of Aristotle's description of particularity as "matter which has the form," he points out that "form" here must be "the particular quality of the thing and not the universal; it is the particular definiteness of the thing" (S.I. ii, 713).

Kahn, Charles H. 1978. "Questions and Categories. Aristotle's Doctrine of Categories in the Light of Modern Research." In Questions, edited by Hiz, Henry, 227-278. Dordrecht: Reidel.

"The categories of Aristotle do not represent a complete logical inventory, a classification of all terms or concepts represented in language. They do attempt to classify all the terms of a basic object language, where these terms are specified by the questions that can be asked or answered concerning an individual subject. Hence the number of categories will be determined by the number of fundamentally distinct questions that can be raised concerning such a subject. As has often been pointed out, the full list of ten given in the Categories and in Topics 1.9 suggests that Aristotle must have taken a human being as his specimen subject, for only in this case would the two minor categories, Posture and Having (or Clothing) be natural topics of inquiry.

There is, then, a factual connection between Aristotle's list of categories and the linguistic forms of question or inquiry. But what is the philosophical significance of this connection? Reflection on this matter may proceed along two quite distinct lines of thought, each of which could provide material for a study devoted to questions and categories. On the one hand, we might consider Aristotle's doctrine simply as an early example of the genre, and widen the concept of category to include modern theories of logical, conceptual, and grammatical categories. Our topic would then become: the connection between interrogative forms and categorial distinctions in general. On the other hand, we may keep our attention fixed on Aristotle's doctrine but generalize the remark about interrogative forms to include other grammatical or linguistic considerations. Our topic will then be: the significance of the connections between Aristotle's scheme of categories and certain facts of grammar, including the grammar of questions in Greek. It is this second topic that I propose to study here: I will discuss Aristotle's theory, not category theories in general." (pp. 227-228, notes omitted)

(...)

"The doctrine of categories is not, after all, the central thesis in Aristotle’s ontology. It provides a kind of introduction to metaphysics and to theoretical philosophy in general, by sorting and circumscribing the domain of things that are beings per se, ‘in their own right’. When the categorial scheme is applied in connection with the focal meaning of being, it effects a preliminary unification and ordering of this domain in its ontological dependence on substance or ‘entity’. But in the final analysis the scheme does not tell us what is to count as an entity or how the structure of a substance is to be understood. The deeper analysis of substance itself and its relation to the dependent beings must be carried out by the use of different concepts, φυσικώς not λογκίώς as Aristotle will sometimes say, concepts derived not from the theory of predication but designed specifically for the analysis of natural motion and change: concepts like mover and goal (τέλος), matter and form, potency and act. Both physics and metaphysics culminate in the theory of the Unmoved Mover, the entity (or entities) whose being is actuality, the final cause of all motion and change, the ‘primary substance’ on which all other substances depend (Λ.7, 1072b 14; cf. Γ.2, 1003b16—17, E.1, 1026a27-31). In this ultimate perspective for ontology, which Aristotle himself never worked out in full detail, the preliminary contribution of the categories in distinguishing substance from the various kinds of dependent beings must seem quite modest and elementary. All the more reason, however, why the categorial scheme itself should be firmly rooted in humble, everyday questions like What is it? How big? Of what sort or quality? In relation to what? Where? and When?" (p. 266)

Kampa, Samuel, and Wilkins, Shane Maxwell. 2018. "Aristotle as a Non Classical Trope Theorist." History of Philosophy Quarterly no. 35:117-136.

"A common refrain in Aristotle scholarship is that Aristotle countenances tropes. Roughly, trope theory is the view that properties are abstract particulars. In contemporary metaphysics, trope theory is an alternative to realism—the view that properties are abstract universals—and to nominalism—the view that properties are neither abstract particulars nor abstract universals. While contemporary trope theorists sometimes cite Aristotle as an influence, Aristotle’s trope theory has yet to be thoroughly cashed out in the language of contemporary metaphysics. Contemporary trope theory is not monolithic, so the claim that “Aristotle is a trope theorist” only communicates so much about Aristotle’s view. A more informative analysis would specify what kind of trope theorist Aristotle is. In this paper, we provide such an analysis.

We begin by describing realism, nominalism, and trope theory interms recognizable to both historians of philosophy and contemporary metaphysicians. We distinguish two species of trope theory: classical and nonclassical. On the basis of critical passages from Aristotle’s Categories and Metaphysics, we argue that Aristotle’s view of properties aligns most closely with nonclassical trope theory. We conclude with a call for further research on Aristotle’s distinctive contribution to debates in contemporary trope theory." (p. 117)

Kapp, Ernst. 1942. Greek Foundations of Traditional Logic. New York: Columbia University Press.

Contents: Preface V-VIII; I. The origin of logic as a science 5; II. Concepts, terms, definitions, ideas, categories 20; III. Judgments, subject and predicate 43; IV. Syllogisms 60; V. Induction: ancient and modern logic 75; Books cited 89; Index 91-95.

On the categories see pp. 36-42.

"There is no doubt that the book Categories is partly responsible for the contents of this first part of traditional logic, because it professes to deal with the significance of unconnected parts of sentences; but the Topics, our earliest document, not only of Aristotle's treatment of syllogisms but also of categories, shows that the doctrine of categories was originally a doctrine of sentence-predicates and was only later transformed by Aristotle himself into some scheme for pigeonholing whatever carries a single word as its name." (p. 23)

(...)

"[Categories] contains, on the basis of a short but very interesting preparatory section (chaps. I-III), which one might call more·logical than ontological, a minute description of the first four categories (substance, quantity, relation, and quality), in which an ontological point of view seems to prevail. The doctrine here revealed is far from the flexible subtleties of Aristotle's fully developed metaphysics, but there are some striking coincidences with statements otherwise peculiar to the Topics; and the conclusion that the treatise Categories was a comparatively early work by Aris.totle himself is fairly safe.

In any case, even without reference to the question of authorship and chronology it can be stated that nowhere else in Aristotle's writings is the source of the difficulties which are inherent in the later form of the doctrine so transparent as here." (p. 40)

———. 1942. Greek Foundations of Traditional Logic New York: Columbia University Press.

Contents: I. The origin of logic as a science 3; II. Concepts, terms, definitions, ideas, categories 20; III. Judgments, subject and predicate 43; IV. Syllogisms 60; V. Induction, ancient and modern logic 75; Books cited 89; Index 91-95.

"As we learn from the Topics, it was the original function of the list of different "categories" to protect against fallacies and mistakes caused by the similar linguistic form of different predications." (p. 37)

(...)

"In any case, even without reference to the question of authorship and chronology it can be stated that nowhere else in Aristotle's writings is the source of the difficulties which are inherent in the later form of the doctrine so transparent as here. The book explains its subject in the following way. Assuming that there are "things which are said," it divides them into two groups (1a,16-19): some "are said" in sentence composition, for example "(a) man runs,""(a) man wins," others "are said" without such composition, for example, "man," "ox," "runs," "wins." Now, each of these latter things-which "are said" out of sentence composition and, accordingly, without being either true or false-signifies one of the ten categories (substance or quality or quantity, and so forth). This looks at first sight as if the author were going to classify the significations of all uncombined words of language and as if the mention of sentences was merely complementary. But in fact nothing but the ten classes of sentence predicates is presented to the reader, and the actual function of the mention of sentences (previous to "things said without sentence composition") is to direct his attention exclusively to such "things said" as may be constituents of sentences like "man runs," and "man wins." Thus, there is actually no extension of the doctrine beyond its original limited subject matter; the only real difference is that things like "man," and "ox" may now be understood as sentence subjects, whereas in the original form of the doctrine the signification of the first category was derived from the meaning that predicates like "is (a) man" and "is (a) horse" display as soon as they are opposed to and compared with predicates like "is white" and "is six feet high."

Yet the historical importance of this seemingly slight change in the presentation of the doctrine of categories can scarcely be overestimated.

For, if nothing else, the illusion is certainly created that the ten classes of categories had been intended from the beginning and might be used, without scruple or further investigation, to cover the whole field of the possible signification of single words; and this is something that in ancient times, without modern transcendentalism and without modern psychology, nobody could in the long run keep distinguished from the field of "things in general." Because of the almost exclusive predominance of the treatise Categories in the development of traditional logic it is not necessary for us to consider, in their own aspect, the passages in undoubtedly Aristotelian writings, where use is made of the doctrine of categories in a wider sense than the original sense; but the complete lack of a new discussion of its principle of enumeration shows clearly that Aristotle himself was the first victim of such an illusion." (pp. 40-41)

Kenny, Anthony John Patrick. 1983. "A Stylometric Comparison Between Five Disputed Works and the Remainder of the Aristotelian Corpus." In Zweifelhaftes im Corpus Aristotelicum. Studien zu einigen Dubia. Akten des 9. Symposium Aristotelicum, Berlin, 7-16 September 1981, edited by Moraux, Paul and Wiesner, Jürgen, 345-366. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.

[The five dubious works examined are: Categoriae, Meteorologica IV, De Motu Animalium, Metaphysica α, Metaphysica Κ.]

"What can stylometric techniques tell us about the authenticity of the five possibly Aristotelian works which are the topic of this Symposion? In the present state of our knowledge it is not easy to give a precise answer to this question. There is no doubt, to my mind, that the statistical examination of literary style is a valuable auxiliary tool in the study of the questions which interest the philologist and the philosopher who approach an ancient text. But to decide whether a work is genuine or spurious is one of the most difficult tasks for stylometry." (p. 345)

(...)

"A firm stylometric conclusion about the authenticity of the works which are the topic of this symposion would have to be based on a truly gigantic amount of investigation: investigation which would take a very long time even now when machine-readable texts of Aristotle are available and when computers will produce concordances, word counts, and statistical analyses with a modicum of effort. The present essay offers only a minute contribution to such an investigation. It studies the use of twenty-four common particles and connectives in the dubious works, comparing the four commonest of them with virtually the whole Aristotelian corpus, and the other twenty with a large sample of some three hundred thousand words, which constitute about thirty per cent of the round million words of the entire corpus. The essay will provide only tentative indications of the genuineness or spuriousness of the works in dispute; but it will illustrate the difficulties and pitfalls of the use of stylometric methods in authorship attribution studies.

The four commonest particles in the Aristotelian corpus are καί, δέ, γάρ and μέν, in that order. Between them these four particles constitute around fourteen per cent of a typical Aristotelian text. Because of their frequency and topic-neutrality they provide suitable material for statistical study. We shall use them as a starting-point for a comparison between the dubious works and the rest of the Aristotelian corpus." (pp. 346-347)

(...)

"The overall conclusion, then, of this study is as follows. We have discovered in our examination of twenty four particles no real evidence suggesting the spuriousness of Metaph. K or of Mot. Anim. But the frequencies of άλλά, δή, διό, ώσπερ and γε in Cat. and of καί, μέν, δέ, αν, γε, διό in Mete. IV are eccentric enough to be suspicious. And the overall picture of particle usage in Metaph. α appears to be quite different from that in other works of Aristotle." (pp. 365-366)

King, Colin Guthrie. 2018. "Aristotle’s Categories in the 19th Century." In Aristotelian Studies in 19th Century Philosophy, edited by Hartung, Gerald, King, Colin Guthrie and Rapp, Christoph, 11-36. Berlin: de Gruyter.

Abstract: "This chapter explores interpretive debates about Aristotle’s Categories in the 19th century. The interpretation of this text became the locus to pursue the further philosophical aim of defending logic against an epistemological recalibration of concepts such as that found in the transcendental and metaphysical deductions of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. As Colin Guthrie King argues, this was the ultimate philosophical ambition of Friedrich Adolf Trendelenburg’s interpretation of Aristotle’s doctrine of categories, but perhaps more important than this project itself were its derivatives: a model for the proper philosophical interpretation of an ancient philosophical text, and an exemplary model of how to defend such a text against an influential anachronistic interpretation."

Kohl, Markus. 2008. "Substancehood and Subjecthood in Aristotle's Categories." Phronesis.A Journal for Ancient Philosophy no. 53:172-179.

Abstract: "I attempt to answer the question of what Aristotle’s criteria for ‘being a substance’ are in the Categories. On the basis of close textual analysis, I argue that subjecthood, conceived in a certain way, is the criterion that explains why both concrete objects and substance universals must be regarded as substances. It also explains the substantial primacy of concrete objects. But subjecthood can only function as such a criterion if both the subjecthood of concrete objects and the subjecthood of substance universals can be understood as philosophically significant phenomena. By drawing on Aristotle’s essentialism, I argue that such an understanding is possible: the subjecthood of substance universals cannot simply be reduced to that of primary substances. Primary and secondary substances mutually depend on each other for exercising their capacities to function as subjects. Thus, subjecthood can be regarded as a philosophically informative criterion for substancehood in the Categories."

Kosman, Louis Aryeh. 1967. "Aristotle's First Predicament." The Review of Metaphysics no. 20:483-506.

Reprinted in: Mary L. O'Hara (ed.), Substances and Things. Aristotle's Doctrine of Physical Substance in Recent Essays, Washington: University Press of America, 1982, pp. 19-42.

"Is the aristotelian list of categories, enigmatically entitled "κατηγορίαι-predicates," a list of terms classifying types of predicates, or a list of predicates classifying types of entities? Consider two ways in which a list of categories might be generated. Given some entity, we may distinguish different types of questions which we ask about it, such that each type determines a limited and exclusive range of appropriate answers."

(...)

"Alternatively, we might attend not to the different answers appropriate to different questions asked about the same entity, but to the different answers which result when, about different entities, the same question is asked repeatedly, the question "What is it?"

(...)

"Each ultimate answer will signify a supreme and irreducible genus of entity, not a type of predicate, but a predicate, effecting a classification of things into their ultimate types." (pp. 483-484)

Kung, Joan. 1986. "Aristotle on "Being Is Said in Many Ways"." History of Philosophy Quarterly no. 3:3-18.

"It is a well-known Aristotelian dictum that "that which is may be so called in many ways" (Met. 1003a33). He also says,"Such things as signify the schemata of predication are said to be per se. For to be signifies in the same number of ways as these are spoken of' (Met. 1017a23), and he speaks of "categories of being" (e.g. at Met. 1045b28-29). Gareth B. Matthews(1) has raised the following question with regard to passages such as those just cited: Is Aristotle supposing in such passages that (a) there are different senses of "being,"(2) or (b) there are different kinds of being, or (c) both? Matthews has shown that the claims that a term has different senses and that it refers to different kinds are not two ways of saying the same thing. We should note also that his question is not the same question as whether the categories range over things or senses. I shall assume we may be confident that Aristotle takes himself to be talking about extra-linguistic and extra-conceptual entities, and I shall say a bit more about this in Section IV below. To answer the latter question, however, is not to answer the former." (p. 3)

(1) Gareth B. Matthews, "Senses and Kinds," The Journal of Philosophy, vol. 69 (1972), pp. 149-157. (2) The presence of a neuter "the" before "being" at 1003a33 may provide some slight evidence that he is speaking of the word.

Kunkel, Joseph C. 1971. "A New Look at Non-Essential Predication in the “Categories”." The New Scholasticism no. 45:110-116.

"Recent commentators appear in general agreement over the essential nature of the expression 'predicated of' in Aristotle's Categories(1) 'Predicated of' denominates the genus-species-individual or essence-singular relationship. Only the species, genus, or essence is predicable of the individual subject. Accidental predication is prohibited. Moreover, the species and genera can be subjects, but individuals can never be predicates.

My opposition is not to the expression 'predicated of' including the species, genera, or essences as predicable of individuals, but to this expression as only including, or being equivalent to, that type of predication. Does 'predicated of' exclude accident. as predicable of substances? Reflecting the thinking or the other commentators, C.-H. Chen says, "What it is still more important to observe in this connection is that in the Categoriae no intergeneric predication and, therefore, also no intercategorical predication are conceived to be genuine predication.(2) I think the limitation of predication to essential, categorical lines is untenable for three reasons." (p. 110)

(1) Cf. S. Mansion, "La doctrine aristotélicienne de la substance et le traité des Categories," Proceedings of the Tenth International Congress of Philosophy, I, pt. II (Amsterdam, 1949), pp. 1097-98; L. M. de Rijk, The Place of the Categories of Being in Aristotle's Philosophy {Assen, 1952), p. 70; C.-H. Chen, "On Aristotle's Two Expressions: ϰαθ᾿ ὑποϰειμένου λέγεσθαι and ἐν ὑποϰειμένῳ ἐιναι" Phronesis, 2 {1957), 149-50; J. Owens, "Aristotle on Categories," Review of Metaphysics, 14 (1960-61), 75-76; J. L. Ackrill, Aristotle's Categories and De Interpretatione (Oxford, l963), pp. 74-76 ; G. E. L. Owen, "Inherence," Phronesis, 10 (1965). 97-98; and J. M. E. Moravcsik, "Aristotle on Predication," Philosophical Review, 16 (1967), 85-93.

(2) Chen, Phronesis, 2, 150.

Kuntz, Marion Leathers, and Grimley, Kuntz Paul. 1988. "Naming the Categories: Back to Aristotle by Way of Whitehead." The Journal of Speculative Philosophy no. 2:30-47.

"Any one who looks at Aristotle's Categories in Greek must notice that the main category is expressed by a pronoun, and all the others are adverbs and verbs.(1) Without going through innumerable commentaries and translations one cannot have a full story; but the result in Latin and English is generally to edge out the pronoun 'τι' in the question τι εστί' and to use only Aristotle's noun οὐσία and from then on all adverbs and verbs are translated into Latin or English nouns. This may seem a trivial point of grammar and indeed the dullest and somewhat dubious aspect of grammar, parts-of-speech. But if our language is to help us in ordering our activities and grouping our experiences into the structure of things and events, surely it makes a great difference whether we communicate in verbs or in nouns. If we communicate with an emphasis on the verb, we go naturally to the adverb to distinguish more subtly. If we communicate in nouns, we go to adjectives to make distinctions. It is the latter that leads to classification." (p. 30)